"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsmtsm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:997656ba-a6b8-4764-88b3-a33644e8314d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Jan 25, 11:30 pm, "One Bit Shy" <O...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
>>
messagenews:3e828a99-18ad-40d8-bcb4-76d9640e5216@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>> > On Jan 25, 4:40 pm, "One Bit Shy" <O...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> >> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
>
>> > You have issues with all the times
>> > Buffy and Angel try to break up in S3, and I have them here - sure,
>> > some of the details are different on this occasion, so there's some
>> > possibility that they might really mean it, but that was true last
>> > time too.
>>
>> Yeah, I get that. I think the long goodbye of both stories is intended
>> to
>> be a parallel. And, while, the details certainly are different, they
>> both
>> go to being in denial about the impossibility of the pairing.
>>
>> I'm not certain why Angel's breakup works for you and this doesn't.
For
>> me,
>> I think the difference is that I was never all that fond of the Angel
>> relationship to begin with, so I was just waiting for it to get over
>> already. That romance worked best for me way back in S1's Angel - and
>> maybe
>> in the wistful what if of IWRY. It's best feature for me was the dream
>> like
>> quality of adolescent imagining of romance. So momentary florid
moments
>> like, "When you kiss me I wanna die," work too. But mostly it
collapses
>> for
>> the shallowness of it all. (Excepting Angelus of course, but part of
the
>> perverse joy of that is the way it beats up on the goopy stuff.)
>>
>> The Spike affair seems to strike something more basic and true within
>> Buffy.
>> Indeed, part of the story is about letting go of illusion. It feels
that
>> way to me anyway. I'm very caught up in the emotions of it and feel
the
>> swings between rejection and acceptance as dancing on a precipice. An
>> awful
>> thrill.
>
> The breakup with Angel is all about letting go of illusion too. We've
> known since day one that there were myriad reasons that Buffy and
> Angel couldn't be a couple, and that only becomes more clear the older
> she gets and the more we learn about what he's really like. But
> something that feels this instincually right has to be real, no matter
> what common sense and the adult world say... right? The story is
> built from the start on a basic contradiction - presented in an almost
> embarassingly juvenile way in some of the early episodes - and then it
> develops the theme in unexpected ways as years go by.
The developing unexpectedly is where I lose it. It feels like killing
time
until mom lays down the law. I suppose that completes are flipped
perspectives.
> I certainly
> don't mind a twisted psychological drama (although I've gone into why
> I don't think the S6 portion of the B/S arc is as consistently deep as
> it could be, given the personalities involved), but you can't beat a
> fundamentally doomed relationship between people who care about each
> other for mixing pain with denial. (Well, me just liking Angel better
> than Spike is part of it too.)
>
> There're definitely a lot of parallels between the two stories, both
> for comparison and contrast purposes; of course, how could there not
> be?
>
>> Or, to use a different metaphor, saying a roller coaster is
>> repetitious going up and down doesn't adequately describe the
>> experience....
>> Unless, that is, it's really not a thrill for you. Then it's dead on.
>
> I'll match the metaphor and raise you (because it happens to match up
> nicely in this case): I loves me a good precipitous drop. Cedar
> Point, in your home state, has some of the most thrilling rides known
> to man. On the other hand, I admit that the other major class of
> coaster - the kind that primarily generate its thrills from flipping
> the rider over and leaving his perspective distorted - leaves me a
> little cold.
Cedar Point is indeed a great roller coaster park. And I have to agree
with
your point. They have a ride called the Corkscrew (really old now - one
of
the earliest of the type I think) which just does a spiral and a loop.
Aside from being absurdly short, I hate the ride because it bruises me
without any thrill as compensation. But I have to say, based on
observation
of people hanging out around it, a lot of people find it really freaky.
OBS
|
